~ Omar, with a bit of cheese

Cross-cultural soup

Today’s soup was another cracker. I set out to make a lentil soup. I had onions, carrots, potatoes and over ripe tomatoes to hand and elected to flavour the soup with cumin and celery seeds. Garlic was involved of course, and also a little dried chopped parsley.

It was the best lentil soup that I have ever made. Very tasty and deep and seemingly rich, although no butter was involved. I used Hemp Oil to sauté the onions, hoping to impart a little nuttiness to the soup. The result was something of a revelation and it is a tactic that I shall certainly deploy again.

briefly:

Warm a heavy bottomed pan with a little Hemp Oil in it. Toss in a large onion, diced. When the onions becomes soft and translucent add diced carrots and potatoes in equivalent quantity to the onions and season well. Toss in some mashed garlic, two teaspoons of cumin seeds and one of celery seed and cook for a minute or two. Stir in a cup of red lentils – washed, picked and drained. Add vegetable stock to cover, and simmer until the veg are tender and the lentils have broken down and thickened the soup. Stir in a large ripe tomato, cubed, and a handful of parsley. Simmer gently, adding a final seasoning to taste.

I had intended to serve my soup with home-made pitta breads. I got things wrong and accidentally thawed some naan instead. No matter, they worked equally well. They are just as good for dunking.